According to the agreement in principle with the World Bank, loans will be available for Arun III project.
We use Google Cloud Translation Services. Google requires we provide the following disclaimer relating to use of this service:
This service may contain translations powered by Google. Google disclaims all warranties related to the translations, expressed or implied, including any warranties of accuracy, reliability, and any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and noninfringement.
After nine days of negotiations with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in the US, the loan for the Arun project was approved. With the help of the World Bank, the construction of the 402 MW Arun, which will be built at a cost of 38 billion, increased the possibility of the construction of the Arun at a time when political parties and social organizations were strongly protesting that the country would lose its rights and natural resources would go into the hands of foreigners.
From the last week of May 2051, after 9 days of talks with the World Bank in Washington, Nepal, there was a theoretical agreement to receive loan assistance. In the meeting, every point of the 167-page long record about Arun was discussed . For that some process had to be completed .
Nepal's then team leader Finance Secretary Dr. Thakurnath Pant decided to vote in the board of directors of the bank on July 11, 2051, about the loan given to Arun. The bank will hold a meeting of its board of directors regarding the loan proposal. Finance Secretary Pant, the coordinator of the Nepalese team participating in the talks, said that there is little chance of a negative vote on Arun's issue in the meeting of that day. He returned to Nepal after attending a bank meeting in America.
He said that if there is no negative vote in the meeting of the board of directors, Arun's loan will be activated from October 2051. There was a loan offer of 8 billion 50 crores for Arun. The loan group was led by the World Bank. In the meeting, Pant informed that there was a long discussion with American non-governmental organizations, the world and Japan. Although the loan was led by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other countries including Japan also had investments.
Especially at that time, the condition set by the World Bank was not acceptable for Nepal. Pant tried to show that the World Bank did not set the condition that Nepal would be inadmissible.
Water Resources Secretary Suryanath Upadhyay and Arun Project Chief Janakraj Karmacharya were in America to answer the issues raised in the consultation meeting in America. Representatives of the National Planning Commission and the Mahendra Nature Conservation Fund also went to America to answer many questions.
The topic raised by the organizations of Nepal was internationalization. On the basis of that, at the international level, Western countries were very strong. Pant said that due to this pressure, many things about Arun were spread internationally. He said, "Many suspicions have been spread about Arun". The memorandum of understanding signed between the World Bank and the government in October 1993 has also been made public. But the campaigners and the press were saying that the memorandum was kept secret.
The World Bank had prepared to organize an international conference of social organizations on June 14, 2051 regarding Arun. In that meeting, those who were raising their voice against Arun's negative aspects including 'Alliance for Energy' from Nepal were invited. The
project is more risky for Nepal and the electricity produced by this project will be expensive for the citizens. Before going to participate in the international conference, 14 gasses participated in the Alliance for Energy, concern groups and concluded that Arun is risky for Nepal after a comprehensive discussion in Kathmandu. At that time, some accused Arun of raising the gasses to hand over to India.
When the Arun project was in confusion due to the role played by the government, the opposition party, and social organizations, the possibility of getting a loan was increased by the meeting held in America. As it is the biggest project to be invested in Nepal, there was a lot of national/international interest . By including this reference, Kantipur published a news on 12th June 2051 under the title 'Arun will start from 3rd November'.
Presentation: Rishiram Paudyal
![[Archive] Talks in the US exploring the future of the Arun project](https://assets-cdn-api.ekantipur.com/thumb.php?src=https://assets-cdn.ekantipur.com/uploads/source/news/kantipur/2025/miscellaneous/nepali-america-samandha-1262024034742-1000x0-0882025125031-1000x0.jpg&w=1001&h=0)